Jim Cloar

Updated: Goode left Pathfinder in April 2012, according to his Linkedin profile. Our original story is below.-Ed.

Pathfinder Therapeutics, a startup with products for "surgical GPS" of the abdomen, today announced it has appointed Jim Cloar president and CEO, apparently following the departure of Skip Goode, who had served roughly two years.

Most recently, Cloar was consulting through JLC Consulting, a sole proprietorship. Previously, he was general manager for the navigation and imaging division of Medtronic; earlier, he held similar jobs with Depuy, Smith & Nephew and C.R. Bard, according to Pathfinder's release today. Cloar earned his undergraduate degree from Georgetown College, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The decade-old Pathfinder venture has attracted substantial venture capital, most recently including investments from two TNInvestco funds, Limestone Fund and TriStar Technology Fund, as well as earlier from the Nashville Capital Network's Angel Group and its sidecar NCN Angel Fund. Pathfinder is also a Vanderbilt University technology commercialization portfolio company.  Additional VNC Pathfinder coverage here.

Skip Goode

Pathfinder Executive Chairman Marc Buntaine said a national search had produced the man who is at least the startup's fourth CEO in the past four years. Goode had followed Interim CEO Robert Morff and prior CEO Paul MacDonald. Goode's LinkedIn profile today does not yet reflect his departure [See editor's note, above].

Pathfinder's leadership changes have several times preceded an annual American Hepato Pancreato-Billary Association (AHPBA) conference, where Pathfinder showcases its image-guided liver surgical products, which the company says are in use at UPMC, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Barnes Jewish Hospital and National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to its release.

Pathfinder aims to improve surgical precision, it explains, with technology that enables surgeons to "see through" the target organ, by registering the surgical instrument in three-dimensional space onto pre-operative patient medical images. Pathfinder says it is the first company "to receive FDA clearance for a medical device to navigate liver surgery using preoperative medical images. The Explorer system uses state-of-the-art line of sight localization and laser range scanning surface registration techniques to show surgeons where they are in the context of their target organ and underlying structures."

Pathfinder also markets Scout, a software system for liver-urgery planning; and, it is developing technology for use in "minimally invasive surgical interventions in the liver," the company explains.

Beyond the liver, Pathfinder is developing "guidance systems for the kidney, pancreas, and other organs." VNC